Word.ws English Dictionary

swack

/swæk/

swack adjective: lithe; nimble.

Adjective

swack (comparative swacker, superlative swackest)

  1. (Scotland) Lithe; nimble.
    • Matthew advanced to the foot of the stairs and whistled. The signal had been expected, for presently he was joined by a swack youth of about eighteen years, who carried a couple of long salmon-spears.1881, Charles Gibbon, For Lack of Gold, page 307
    • A swack, healthy lass, with plump bust, arms, and legs (the last then evident), laughing lips, eyes over which the dark hair strayed—a guileless face, full of light and love.1897, George A. Mackay, Where the Heather Grows, page 161
    Synonyms:
    gracile, svelte, willowy

Noun (1)

swack (plural swacks)

  1. (slang) A large number or amount of something.
    • She gave me a swack of books.
    • They run a Navajo Trading Store along with five hundred cows and a swack of bad horses.1930, Lee Sage, Harvey Fergusson, The Last Rustler: The Autobiography of Lee Sage, page 89

Noun (2)

swack (countable and uncountable, plural swacks)

  1. A sharp blow.
    • My eighteen holes was simply a long ride in a golfmobile, with me stopping far too many times to take a swack at the ball.1970, Dwight David Eisenhower, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, page 2032
    • She hit Kevin with a hard swack, rudely knocking him to his senses.1991, Claudia McCormick, Raven at Sunrise, page 73
  2. The sound of a sharp blow.
    • The ball flew between them at incredible speed, hitting off their pads with a swack! that could be heard clearly above the steady splattering of the rain.1981, Daniel Peters, The Luck of Huemac: A Novel about the Aztecs, page 351
    • But with its impact, a sound similar to a swack! emanated from the ring and echoed throughout the gym.1996, Evander Holyfield, Bernard Holyfield, Holyfield: The Humble Warrior, page 45
  3. A wet sound such as a loud kiss.
    • And Cyndi Lauper is ecstatic, first leaping up in the air and then, for good measure, racing over to give Fabulous Moolah a swack for good luck.1985, Bert Randolph Sugar, George Napolitano, Wrestling's Great Grudge Matches: "battles and Feuds", page 18
    • As Molly caught up with him she grabbed the lamprey and yanked. The mouth popped away from J.T.'s body with a swack.1996, Lewis Nordan, Sugar Among the Freaks, page 47
  4. A striking stimulus.
    • An area rug can supply the zing of pattern or a swack of color to a room that languishes from blandness .1967, House & Garden - Volume 131, page 150
  5. An attack, a swipe.
    • Nothing to say, the oilcloth moans under the swack of Mother's sponge.1977, Colette Inez, Alive and Taking Names, and Other Poems, page 52
    • She's taken a swack at you, accusing you of ruining your child. It is anger. Don't return it.1979, Richard L. Weinberg, Lynn Goetsch Weinberg, Parent Prerogatives, page 47
  6. A single attempt or instance of taking action; a crack; a go.
    • We are certainly delighted to see you take another swack at microfilm and are sending our Chapter 14 on the subject.1966, Civic Administration - Volume 18, page 3
    • If we took too much at one time, we'd tip the police that we have operating motor vehicles. Instead, we steal it ten gallons at a swack.1977, Gary K. Wolf, A Generation Removed, page 131
  7. (uncountable) Clout; influence.
    • You have more swack with their management than they do, the same way you have more swack with foreign leaders than any of the Ambassadors that you talked to.1999, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings on the Nomination of Hon. Richard C. Holbrooke to Serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, page 41
  8. A gulp or hearty swallow.
    • What the French criticize," says Le Monde, after a swack at Coca-Cola,“ is not so much Coca-Cola, as its orchestration, less the drink itself than the civilization of which it is a mark and the symbol.1951, Fortune - Volume 43, Part 1, page 120

Verb

swack (third-person singular simple present swacks, present participle swacking, simple past and past participle swacked)

  1. To slap or hit.
    • When Oscar charged the tyrant Loth, Their spears both in flinders flew; Syne swacked they swords in deidly wroth, But a churl behind King Oscar slew!1885, James Lumsden, Rural Rhymes and Sketches in East Lothian, page 88
    • The tide was swacking its heart out on the snarls of rocks that intermittently crocheted the coast line.1946, Lucy Rountree Kuykendall, P.S. to Pecos, page 45
  2. To make a swack (sound).
    • "Rose" looked upon him with unfriendly eye, as his swacking bill-hook would be likely to affright her game.1885, Henry Mills Alden, Frederick Lewis Allen, Lee Foster Hartman, Harper's - Volume 70, page 73
    • The windshield wipers were swacking rapidly back and forth in a hopeless attempt to clear away the sheets of water.1983, Julia Howard, A Lasting Image, page 154
  3. To consume with hearty enjoyment.
    • At any rate, motoring is not even as you were ”before the war, but a good deal further behind in many respects, buoyed up only by the enthusiasm of released automobilists and neomotorists swacking their fill of new post-war delights.1919, Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality - Volume 107, page 30
    • The “swacking" of beer, without more, has no direct probative bearing upon any factual issue in this case.1969, The Pacific Reporter, page 652
  4. To labour; to exert an effort.
    • Morgan was out of sight as usual, swacking away in the engine room.1937, Sidney Corbett, The Cruise of the Gull-Flight, page 133
    • Becky was a slow reader, patiently swacking her way through every line.2003, Elana Nachman/Dykewomon, Moon Creek Road: Collected Stories, page 72

Adverb

swack (comparative more swack, superlative most swack)

  1. With a swack, to the point of touching.
    • Pulling away, Brennan felt his shin swack against Glass's shin, but Glass kept moving.1987, Joseph Monninger, Second Season, page 179
    • Seems to me to be suffin' funny about this 'ere job, doubt but yer an artful young dorg,” and the next moment one of his heavy boots come swack up agin the seat of my trousers.2009, George Baldry, Lilias Rider Haggard, The Rabbit Skin Cap, page 129

Noun (3)

swack (plural swacks)

  1. A bum or petty thief.
    • Jake explained it to her: “A swack started it, at the last show one night in Hoquiam,” he said. “I just happened to notice it, and so after that I've planted a couple of stagehands in the audience for Hen-Tooth's act every show, to start it again.1938, Michael Foster, To Remember at Midnight, page 107
    • They look drunk—like a swack holding onto a lamp post.1955, Michael Cunningham, The Bishop Finds a Way, page 156

Examples of swack in a sentence

  • it came the turn of a brave young childe with a red head and the swackest legs you ever saw, […] and as soon as he began the drill you saw he'd carry off the prize.1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 37:
  • He made a run for shelter, and he was a swack enough lad them days for all his weight of years.1949, William Chambers, Robert Chambers, Chambers's Journal, page 707:
  • He was a swack billy-boy, with the same high color as the landlord, and the same tight spaniel curls.1953, Edward Ballard Garside, The Man from Brazil, page 162:
  • You begin with only 9,125 inhabitants, only $1,071 in the bank, and a swack of services that'll choke your pocketbook if you even think of expanding.1999, Daniel A. Tauber, Brenda Kienan, SimCity 3000: Unofficial Strategies and Secrets:

Synonyms of swack

Forms of swack

Adjective
comparativeswacker
superlativeswackest
Noun
pluralswacks
Verb
third-person singular presentswacks
present participleswacking
past participleswacked
pastswacked
Adverb
comparativemore swack
superlativemost swack

Origin of swack

From Middle English swac (“weak”), possibly borrowed via Scots swack, ultimately from Old English *swæc (found in derivative swæcehēow (“weakmindedness, nonsense”)), from Proto-West Germanic *swak (“weak”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian swäk, West Frisian swak, Dutch zwak, German Low German swack, German schwach, Norwegian Bokmål svak.

Unknown. Speculatively, may be an extension of the sharp blow sense. Compare whack in the sense of "large portion of something".

Considered dialect by Wright, but now widespread. Scottish National Dictionary proposes an origin in Old Scots (Middle English) swak ("to throw violently"). Compare Scots swak, swack (“to throw with violent force, dash", also "a hard blow or whack”). Compare also Middle Dutch swacken (“to shake, wave”).

Words formed from swack

Words that rhyme with swack

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about swack

What does swack mean?
Swack means lithe; nimble.
How do you use swack in a sentence?
it came the turn of a brave young childe with a red head and the swackest legs you ever saw, […] and as soon as he began the drill you saw he'd carry off the prize.
What part of speech is swack?
Swack can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or an adverb.
How do you pronounce swack?
Swack is pronounced /swæk/.

Words near swack in the dictionary

  1. swabs down
  2. Swabue
  3. Swaby
  4. Swabys
  5. swachh
  6. swack
  7. swack up
  8. swack-up
  9. swack-ups
  10. swacked
  11. swacked up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swack (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-swack.wav.

Cite this entry: “swack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.